Eat Pray Love III: Summary (Sorry it's such a quickie summary. I've got stuff I'm trying to get checked off my list, here.)

I really enjoyed Eat, Pray, Love. It was well-written, engaging, personable. It made we want to keep reading. It also made me want to pause so that I could digest a little of what this woman wrote.

However. I will not be keeping it. I will not be selling it used. I'll be destroying it. It's got the very worst permissive, postmodern "there are lots of roads to the top of the mountain of holiness" theology I've read in a long time. It's blasphemous. I'm not going to let it fall into anyone else's hands at all...it could do a lot of damage.

That being said, let me list some things I really liked about this woman's writing.

1) She explains the cultures of the three places she lived during her 'year of odyssey.' It's a travel book. I love getting a peek into the minds and hearts and ways of the Italian people, and of the religious Indian people, and of the Indonesian people. They way others think and operate fascinates me, and I feel like I gained a new perspective on these people groups for reading this book.

2) I never did get why yoga-people do yoga. It's good for your body, to be sure: your balance improves, your muscle tone and your core muscles get stronger. But the religious yoga-people do yoga to increase their ability to meditate.

3) For that matter, she explains why she's so drawn to meditation and religious-yoga. She does a good job clarifying that for little old me. I'm curious, and I get to find out what the big deal is.

4) She openly shares about her struggles with loneliness and depression. She's a good writer, and she makes me feel like I could overcome them too, should they ever come knocking. She writes like she's sitting down in my living room, chatting with me like I'm her good friend.

5) She also writes with purpose. Each chapter seems haphazard as you read it, but when you look back on the structure of the book, look back on the beginning from the end, it's a brilliant book.

Summing up: if you have godly, Biblical discernment and the strength to tell truth from lies, then go ahead and read this book. It's brilliant.

Eat Pray Love II: First Sentence

This book has TWO first sentences. (Well, it actually has four.)

From the beginning of the book:

I wish Giovanni would kiss me.

From the beginning of the foreword:

When you're traveling in India--especially through holy sites and
Ashrams--you see a lot of people wearing beads around their necks.

Heck, why not. From the beginning of the 2nd part of the book:

When I was growing up, my family kept chickens.

Aaaaaand from the beginning of the 3rd part of the book:

I've never had less of a plan in my life than I do upon arrival in
Bali.

Eat, Pray, Love I: Why I Even Own This Book

I saw it at a garage sale. It was 75 cents. I was headed to the beach. I needed a cheap, but good, book.

Books to Blog About (or, Written but Not Documented)

The Village School
Eat, Pray, Love
Microserfs
Julie and Julia
The City of Ember
The People of Sparks